Editors ́ Picks

Half a million Iraqis flee ISIS takeover

As many as 500,000 Iraqis were fleeing the city of Mosul and surrounding areas yesterday, as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham (ISIS) insurgents took over Iraq’s second largest city.

Caught between the threat of well-known atrocities committed at the hands of ISIS and brutality from Iraqi forces, more than half a million people were attempting to escape on Thursday while thousands of others remained trapped. Meanwhile, ISIS continues to advance towards Baghdad.

ISIS took control of Mosul last week, a city which had been in the control of Iraqi military with support from the US.

The Jihadist militant group, along with its precursor al Qaeda in Iraq, have been operating well outside the law for many years in Mosul. Human Rights watch has documented atrocities including suicide bomb attacks, killing with impunity, torture in detention, executions, discrimination against women and the destruction of religious property. Human Rights Watch says they believe ISIS’s crimes may amount to crimes against humanity.

Image credit: Reuters

12.Jun

June 12th, 2014

Ukraine's humanitarian crisis worsens

EDITOR:

Murat Suner

Fighting between Ukrainian government troops and pro-Russian militia is fuelling a worsening humanitarian crisis in eastern Ukraine. Tens of thousands of people are fleeing combat, most of them from the rebel capital of Slavyansk, where almost daily shelling has claimed numerous civilian casualties since late May.

Most residents in the besieged city have been without water, electricity and gas for the past week. Food supplies are limited, and grocery stores smell of rotting food from the lack of refrigeration. Dozens of people queue for drinking water.

About 270 people have died in the east of the country since Kiev launched its "anti-terrorist operation" two months ago, Ukraine's health ministry said on Wednesday. Of those killed, 225 were in Donetsk region, including Slavyansk, where fighting has been heaviest. At least two children have died of shrapnel wounds in Slavyansk this month, according to the health ministry. However, past government estimates have been low, excluding deaths in rebel-held territory.

Appalling conditions in rebel-held towns have caused thousands to flee. The exodus from Slavyansk gathered pace when Ukrainian army shelling intensified at the end of May, with most residents going to the nearby city of Svyatogorsk were they are dependent on the goodwill of locals for housing and food. About 15,000 to 20,000 refugees from Slavyansk have arrived in the city since the end of May, according to mayor Alexander Dzyuba reports the Guardian.

Huge numbers of men are being held captive on Thai ships, where they are forced to work for no pay in extreme conditions under the threat of extraordinary violence.

Escaped workers have reported incidences of 20-hour shifts, being fed methamphetamines in order to keep working, regular beatings, torture and exposure to countless execution-style killings.

The Guardian's investigation found that Thailand-based CP Foods, the world's largest prawn farmer, feeds its prawns fishmeal which has been caught on these 'ghost ships'.

CP Foods supplies Walmart, Tesco, Carrefour and Aldi UK, as well as Costco, Morrisons, the Co-operative and Iceland.

Since news broke yesterday, the US is considering blacklisting Thailand, downgrading the nation to its lowest labour conditions status which could also result in economic sanctions.

10.Jun

June 10th, 2014

Turkey: Demonstrators on trial, police unpunished

EDITOR:

Murat Suner

One year on from the Gezi Park protests, the government’s approach to demonstrations is as abusive as ever while impunity for police violence is rampant, Amnesty International said in a report published today.

“The Turkish authorities have been relentless in their crackdown on protesters - be it police violence on the streets or by prosecuting them through the courts. Meanwhile the police enjoy near total impunity. The message is clear: peaceful demonstrations will not be tolerated,” said Salil Shetty, Secretary General of Amnesty International.

“Just in the last ten days, demonstrations across Turkey to mark the anniversary of the Gezi Park protests were banned and arbitrarily and brutally dispersed with tear gas, water cannons and beatings. The government must change course, allow peaceful protest and ensure accountability for police abuses.”

Amnesty International’s report, Adding injustice to injury: Gezi Park protests one year on, examines developments following the small protest against the destruction of the park in central Istanbul which spiralled into nationwide anti-government demonstrations. It calls on the Turkish authorities to end impunity for human rights abuses by law enforcement officials and to guarantee the right to peaceful assembly.

One year has passed since media outlets first began publishing details of NSA contractor Edward Snowden's revelations, exposing an uncomfortable picture of mass surveillance.

But one year on, what has changed? Not much, it seems.

In the past year we have learned that our telephone data is collected, millions of internet communications are intercepted daily, and that the NSA records every single telephone conversation in Afghanistan and the Bahamas.

Just today Vodafone made it public knowledge that a secret wire in mobile phones allow governments to listen to and record live conversations.

Despite the vast and devastating effects of mass surveillance on our everyday lives, for most of the world it remains to be seen whether policies will be changed.

Human Rights Watch has provided an excellent summary of progress around the world, documenting the lack of whisteblower protection in the US, and a British government unwilling to answer the most basic questions about its surveillance practices.

Germany and also Brazil are leading the charge for the right to privacy, holding it on national agendas as well as at the UN.

05.Jun

June 05th, 2014

Bowe Bergdahl Release Video: Don't Come Back to Afghanistan

EDITOR:

Murat Suner

Footage released by the Taliban allegedly showing the handover at the weekend of their captive US army sergeant Bowe Bergdahl to the American military near the Afghan border with Pakistan. It ends with the caption: 'Don' [sic] come back to afghanistan [sic].' The handover was made in exchange for five militants held at Guantánamo Bay. Bergdahl, 28, is now in a military hospital in Germany, undergoing physical and mental assessments reports the Guardian.

04.Jun

June 04th, 2014

600,000 stateless in Europe

EDITOR:

Vanessa Ellingham

"Everyone has the right to a nationality" - this is the cry of the European Network on Statelessness which reports that at least 600,000 people are currently stateless in Europe.

To be stateless is to not belong to any nationalitiy, leaving the person exposed to a range of human rights abuses as they are not protected by a state.

The network has launched a campaign to end statelessness in Europe, with a petition demanding that all states ascede to the 1954 Statelessness Convention by the end of this year.

The petition also asks that states which do not yet have a procedure for determining statelessness make a commitment to introduce one by the end of 2016.

On the eve of the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown, Amnesty International has documented a further 30 activists that have been persecuted as the Chinese authorities attempt to suppress those that seek to commemorate the victims of 4 June 1989.

Those targeted in the past few days include Luo Xi, who was a student activist in 1989, who has been criminally detained and Bao Tong, 81, a former political aide to the late Communist Party leader Zhao Ziyang, who opposed the crackdown in 1989. Bao has been forced to leave Beijing.

At least 66 people have now been detained by the Chinese authorities in connection to the Tiananmen anniversary.

“The past few days have seen the Chinese authorities ratchet up the repression. They appear willing to stop at nothing in their attempts to prevent people from marking the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown. They have gone further when compared to past years including the 20th anniversary, with more people criminally detained this time,” said William Nee, China Researcher at Amnesty International.

“The authorities must cease this campaign of severe persecution. All those detained for peacefully speaking out about the Tiananmen crackdown must be immediately released. The authorities’ suffocating grip on freedom of expression will not stop people in China and around the world from remembering the victims of 4 June 1989.”

The Constitutional Court said it would order telecommunications authorities to "ensure that the rights violation is removed," the state-run Anadolu Agency reported. It was not clear how soon access to YouTube would be restored.

The restrictions on YouTube were imposed in late March after the leak of an audio recording of a government security meeting. In the recording, senior officials appeared to be discussing a possible military intervention in Syria. A lawyer representing YouTube, the Turkish Bar Association and legislators from Turkey's main opposition party appealed to the high court, seeking to overturn a ban they called unconstitutional. The court's decision is binding.

The decision is a clear setback for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan who wanted to shut down the video-sharing website.